


still with me [TBD]

by Legendaerie



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Body Horror, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Survival Horror, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:31:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1386040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <s>East was safe, yet untainted by the Eotens. He'd meant to live out his days there, contained yet alive. Surviving in comfort as the rest of the world withered away. West was not safe, but the eye of the storm. West was their last hope - not to save the life of their fourth companion, but just to have their death mean something.</s>
</p><p>
  <s>Jean never had wanted to be a hero. Maybe that's why, when the time came, he'd failed at it so badly. </s>
</p><p>
  <s>But still, they had to carry on.</s>
</p><p>EDIT NOTE: CONSIDERABLY BETTER REVISED VERSION UP PLEASE CHECK MAIN PAGE</p>
            </blockquote>





	still with me [TBD]

**Author's Note:**

> based off a really vivid, slightly drunken dream from last night. largely unedited, vent work (probably reffing waaaaaaaay too much off MarshofSleep's perfect zombie au im so fucking sorry)
> 
> whooooopssssss
> 
> (NOTE: since it's been heavily revised, I'm going to delete this fic in a couple days and then archive it on my tumblr as proof of how much one fic can improve with revision YAYAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY)

 

_We three, we're all alone, living in a memory_  
 _My echo, my shadow and me_  
 _We three, we're not a crowd, we're not even company_  
 _My echo, my shadow and me_

_What good is the moonlight, the silvery moonlight_  
 _That shines above_  
 _I walk with my shadow,_  
 _I talk with my echo but where is the one I love_

_We three, we'll wait for you_  
 _Even till eternity_  
 _My echo, my shadow and me_

 

* * *

 

It's both a reassurance and a curse to wake up every morning and see him propped against the wall like a piece of furniture. A reassurance, because he's afraid that one day he'll see more chunks eaten off his best friend, and a curse because he used to wake up beside the other.

Shelves raided of goods have been shoved, stacked to barricade all entrances and windows except for one, where Connie sits watch. Rolls of toilet paper had been laid in a pile, crushed by sleeping bodies but still in their plastic wrapping; they didn't dare open the packages for fear of robbing some other survivors of materials for casts to set broken bones. It feels about as safe as they could hope for, and yet soon they'll have to head out. Jean rises, muscles stiff and sore like they are every morning, skin crusting in places from dust and sweat, and kneels beside the body at the foot of last night's ersatz mattress.

"Hey," and he places his hand on the one intact cheek, used to not feeling a pulse. "You still with me?"

It always takes a little longer than before, then the man with half a face stirs. The eyelid rises slower than the sun, revealing a deep brown and faintly clouded iris; but what's important is the faintest flicker of emotion there. Slow, rich as molasses, the fact that Jean's still recognised gives him strength for the day.

The blond moves on to his daily chore – checking the bandages that bind tight the morass of crushed bone and tissue all along the other's right side. There's no arm, no lung, no eye. He'd been caught, ripped to pieces before Jean and the others had even noticed, and yet somehow...

He's not been turned. Nor has he died.

And it's this oddity, this precarious balance between human and not, between life and undeath, that's sent them all on this detour.

Not that the others had much of a choice. Jean's been the leader since the very beginning, drug his ragtag group of friends through the hell of western Kansas with only one notable loss. And he'd never pick favorites, never voice aloud that he'd rather have lost anyone but this crumbling pile of leftovers, but...

There’s only a little bit of pus this time, mingled with the clots and general fluids from serious injuries; he’s gotten good at keeping it clean, considering the circumstances, and he only removes the tainted wraps. Plasters it with a long strip he tears from the bottom of his own shirt and binds the gaping hole across the throat as closed as he can. Thus finished, he wipes his fingers on his pants, leaving behind a sticky mix of blood and blood serum. John’s attention next fixes on the man on watch, his posture curiously slumped. Beyond, in the dust past the stumps of pumps, he spots a shimmer of movement in the late afternoon light. 

"Oi, Connie," and Jean storms up behind the near-bald Native, "hell of a watch you're keeping."

Connie doesn't startle, though, instead just turning bloodshot eyes his way.

"Yee of little faith, go fuck yourself. I kept watch."

"Oh yeah? Then why's there a Crawler fifty years away from the gas station?"

He jumps at that, the normally rich tones of his skin blanching as he jumps to his feet. Jean waves him down, fetching one of the leather sleeves they used as armor and sliding it on his left arm. It buckles across his chest, and by the time he's finished Connie's returned with his baseball bat.

"Stay here," Jean commands, ripping Connie's weapon out of his grasp. "You're exhausted. Keep an eye on the others - I'll deal with it."

Then he's gone, out the shattered front door of the gas station, testing the weight of the bat in his hand as he approaches the heat-like shimmer beyond the shelter of the shade above the pumps. Jean doesn't really hold Connie accountable; even awake it's hard to spot the hellish creatures.

As soon as he steps off the concrete pad, the dust explodes under his feet. The Crawler's fast, tiny, and toxic - Jean leaps up and sideways, sweeping the bat behind his ankles. It makes contact, and the undead snake flips onto the concrete, long body flailing like a whip.

Jean doesn't have time to curse - just springs again, heel of his boot crushing a section of the Crawler's spine as he dashes past it. Venom splatters the ground behind him as the snake strikes, misses. He springs around one more time, more aware of what side of the bat is up this time, and drives the massive nail at the end of the borrowed weapon through the skull of the Crawler. It sizzles, flails, then collapses.

The smell of decaying reptile fills the air, a putrid aroma. Jean yanks the bat free of the body, expression grim as he returns to the gas station. The last member of their foursome, Sasha, is already packing up her bags with the lightest of their provisions as Connie paces uselessly.

"Eat fast," he commands, handing Connie back his bat and selecting a likely expired can of ravioli from the little pyramid they'd formed on the floor. "That smell's gonna attract more Eoten. It's a little early, but if they show up we're trapped in here."

Sasha nods, tying her hair back into a ponytail as she peels back the lid to two cans of soup. Connie braids her hair as she works, his shaking fingers plaiding the reddish strands absently. The morning ritual, yet undisturbed.

Jean shuffles over to the body, still chewing a mouthful of food. "Here, Marco," and he pulls out a jar of baby food. "You need to eat as well."

The half-crushed head moves toward him slightly, torn lips parting. Jean tilts the jar into the other's mouth, letting some of the pulped food slide inside, murmuring words of encouragement even as some baby food slips from between the molars and dribbles down the torn throat.

"That's it, you're doing great." He parrots back the words he'd heard so often before, still not used to having to fill in the silences himself. it's an aching absence, just as much as the missing arm is on the other.

"Jean."

The brunet glances over his shoulder at Sasha, who's holding his can of ravioli.

"You need to eat, too."

"I'll eat as we walk," he grumbles, turning his attention back to the remains of the man before him. But the other closes his eye, turns away enough for Jean to get the message. Bitterly, he caps the baby food and returns to his own meal.

 

* * *

 

Despite the fragility of the glass jars, Jean still insists on carrying around several containers of baby food. They go on the top of his backpack, the rest of which is stuffed with the cocktail assortment each of them carry - a couple cans of the food of their choice, cellophane-wrapped baked goods crushed into flat masses of sugar and gluten, some rags, a compass, and a MacGyver'd cellphone. In case of seperation, each has their own weapon and their own means of survival - except for the man who can barely shamble along at the end of the group, torso bandaged tight with rags that are blackened wth dried blood.

Jean throws the other's only arm over his shoulder and helps him limp along, immune to the additional weight and residual heat of the body in the Kansas evening sun. His shotgun, which hasn't been fired for almost two weeks now, is slung over his back and it thumps him in the ribs every third or so step. He doesn't like to use it for the sound it makes - not when he's still got Sasha with her bow and Connie with his bat to back them all up.

One more weapon taps against his thigh with every step, strapped to his belt as all four tramp through the crisp, yellowing grass; a cold reminder that the arm that once wielded it is gone.

There's not an Eoten in sight for miles, but no one really relaxes until they come across a small herd of cattle. The beasts are wary of them, lowing softly among themselves as the four head along; but they've adjusted to a life of only fearing the smell of decay, and while they shy away from Jean and his companion the most, he considers it no small victory that none panic at their scent.

To these beasts, he is still human enough.

The lips that lean in, gradually, to graze his ear aren't accompanied by the soft puff of teasing air like they used to - but the gesture of affection is still there. Enough to make his chest clench with emotions, enough to make him swallow and fix his eyes more sharply on the horizon, where the mountains wait for their arrival.

They stick to the flatlands when it gets dark, the stars just as distant and beautiful as always as they cross the hillocked landscape. Once or twice an hour, if hours still existed in a world so overrun with beasts, the broken body would stumble, almost bringing Jean down. But every time he got back up, his tarnished-golden eyes still fixed on their goal ahead even as the hand that held onto the other's hip slowly crusted with the continuous slow oozing of clotting blood.

Only once morning comes, rose and peach and the last form of art left to them, do they stop to rest. There's no convenient gas station this time, so they huddle together in the hollow of a blocked-off storm drain and Jean takes first watch.

He lays against the natural slope of the hill, down from the road, just high enough to be able to see over the asphalt and not high enough to be conspicuous. Birds circle above them, one of the few animals to consistently escape the tainting influence of the Eoten, and he envies them. Their freedom, maybe - more their perspective. Would he have had their sight two weeks ago, they would have been heading east to greener country, to Sasha's family and the rest of their close friends.

But instead, they're heading west to mountains where humanity's last hope lives. They're part of something bigger now, part of the resistance - if they make it. And that had never been part of his plans at all.

East was safe, yet untainted by the Eotens. He'd meant to live out his days there, contained yet alive. Surviving in comfort as the rest of the world withered away. West was not safe, but the eye of the storm. West was their last hope - not to save the life of their fourth companion, but just to have their death mean something.

Jean never had wanted to be a hero. Maybe that's why, when the time came, he'd failed at it so badly.

But still, they had to carry on.

At the base of the hill, a short distance from where Connie and Sasha are curled up next to each other like dogs, the body lays still in the coarse underbrush of the culvert. The shade is haphazard at best, but it's hidden. Jean watches the pattern of sunlight through empty branches pattern across one freckled cheek.

He owes Marco this much, at least.

 

* * *

 

Days roll by, and the hills get steeper as they get closer and closer to their destination. The body stumbles more and more often, but Jean won't let them move along until he's back on his feet, baring his teeth in his own grimace of effort as he tries to walk to both of them.

"What?!"

He's tired, they're all tired; he's hurting but everyone else is, too. Still, despite this, he lashes out.

Connie stares at him, confusion behind his wide brown eyes. "I didn't say anything?"

"No, but you're thinking something, aren't you?" Jean struggles to his feet, stumbles on his own this time, and ignores the hand that tries to haul him upright.

"Hey, man, do you need some water--"

"I'm fucking fine."

Weak fingers clench in the fabric of the neck of his tee shirt, reminds him to calm down. He takes in a deep breath, catches an aftertaste of decay on the breeze, and feels sick.

"Sasha, do you smell--"

But the redhead's already readying her bow, dropping to a crouch. Connie hits the dirt as well - they're exposed in this landscape, the scenery blurring in the light of early dawn. Laying the body down, Jean kneels beside him, digging in his pocket for shotgun shells with shaking hands.

There's no movement on the horizon. Sasha's form doesn't waver, either, and Jean's stomach lurches. He leans down to the body below him, avoiding the glassy stare, and takes in a deep breath.

"False alarm," he mutters, and Connie swears.

Sasha relaxes her bow and rises, the sloppy bun of her hair falling apart already and brushing the top of her backpack.

"What now?"

Jean reaches down and cradles the broken body, clutching it to his chest as he inhales, exhales, tries to convince himself his nose is wrong. And it seems that way for several long breaths, but mired in the scent of blood and sweat is the faint, sickly odor of death.

If he's dying, then that also means he could be turning. The precarious balance is starting to shift, and they're running out of time.

He shrugs out of his backpack, hearing the glass jars of baby food clinking against each other, and rises with the man in his arms.

"We run. Sasha, try to scout ahead - Connie, you back her up."

The uninjured male crosses his arms and scowls. "So what, we're supposed to leave you alone?"

"I'm not alone!"

Connie steps back at the anger in Jean's eyes as he steps forward, staggering slightly under the weight of the malnourished body.

"I'm-- I'm not alone," he repeats, voice softer. It doesn't suit his image, not with the gun slung over his shoulders and the bloody form in his arms. "Go ahead. Get help, maybe. But don't look back, all right?"

Sasha takes in a deep, uneven breath - then breaks into a jog,heading west at a pace that Jean knows is soon going to exhaust her. Connie wavers for a moment, his own indecision clear in his movements.

"It's not too late, Jean. This-- this wasn't a waste. We're all going to be--"

"Shut up," Jean hisses. "And get moving."

But Connie ignores him. His eyes are hard to make out in the gloom, but his voice is steady.

"Take care of each other, all right?"

And then, only then, does he sprint after Sasha in the darkness.

 

* * *

 

He's going delirious with heat and exhaustion.

Jean can feel it, the back of his mind screaming at him with ever forced step. They're so close now that he can see the shapes of trees on the mountains in the distance, little masses of mossy green on an artist's canvas. He hasn't hardly stopped to rest since he forced his partners to leave, guiding him on with strategically placed bits of food or water every mile or so, but they're almost there now.

There's a little stash left for them in the shade of a broken down van, and Jean folds himself around the other for a brief, indulgent moment of lasped vigilance. He chews up mouthfuls of canned fruit, swallowing half for himself, and the rest he feeds to his companion by spitting it into his hand and then sliding his fingers into the damaged mouth.

"An indirect kiss, huh, Marco?" he asks, offering the other a drink from the sugary syrup at the bottom of the can. "You know, I... I really wished I'd done it before, you know. Kissed you, I mean."

A hand slowly reaches up, and he watches it in dizzy silence until he fumbles across his own - then he shifts and their fingers lock together. Jean glances back at the half-crushed face and watches a tear slide down his cheek, leaving behind a faint trail of clean, freckled skin.

Then he whispers something he wished he'd said millions of times before this, that he'll never speak again.

"I love you, too."

 

* * *

 

Jean awakens to the retort of the shotgun.

He hadn't even realized he'd been asleep until it jolts him awake, until he sees Marco bracing the butt of the gun against the van. His movements are slow, painfully slow, but they're sure and human as an Eoten bleeds and steams in silent agony. The beasts is a massive, swollen, naked humanoid pock-marked by bitemarks from others of it's own kind, but it's a perfect headshot and Jean knows it won't be getting up this time.

But the echo of the shotgun is ringing around them like a dinner bell, and now they really have to run. Jean staggers to his feet, grabbing both gun and companion and they run together, neither much faster than the other in their mutual exhaustion and fear. They're close, so close - he won't let them fall now.

The arm around his shoulder feels stronger now, is able to cling enough to keep up as Jean's eyes scout out the horizon. They'd been told that the mountains were safe, heavily protected, with Eoten and their infected, half-living ilk ruthlessly hunted down. But they were still flanked on three sides by plains, and before them lay a stretch of the ruins of what might have been a town once. Haphazard slabs of concrete, walls and cars and the occasional flash of faded advertisements awaited them like a mile-wide obstacle course laden with possible Eoten.

Jean has five shells left in his pocket, and Marco's machete on his hip. Nothing else - no water, no food, no phone or signal flares. They'll fight their way through alone or they'll die. There is no other option.

The heat of midday is all around them, a dry haze that's baked the ground into dust beneath their feet. Jean keeps up a grueling, self destructive pace, shotgun in hand as they enter the city. Sound echoes around them, bouncing off the walls, and it's impossible to tell what--

The hand on his shoulder tightens, and Jean whips them both around just in time to avoid a Spitter landing on the ground where they'd be standing mere moments before. The infected feline hisses at them, unsteady on its oversized paws, and Jean manages to crack it below the chin with the muzzle of the gun in a wild swing. The neck snaps, audibly, and the Spitter falls to the ground, body jerking in chokes as what passed now for 'life' left the body.

They keep running.

It's hard to glance down every alley as they run, harder still to keep track of where they are as they pass through barely intact buildings that block out the sky. Jean uses the gun as a club for the smaller creatures that spring at them, Marco keeping what little watch he could out of his one eye and clinging, desperately, to Jean's back.

But inevitably, he stumbles, yanking Jean down with him, and when the lighter-haired man tries to pull him up he shakes his head.

"No, no no no, you have to get up," he begs the other, but then he sees the way the foots been twisted at an unnatural angle. Marco shakes his head again, slow and sorrowful.

"I'm not leaving you behind. Not again. Not ever." Jean kneels down, wrapping the one arm around his neck and the legs around his waist. "You're so, so important, Marco. You have to live. This time, you're the one that matters."

With Marco wrapped around his back, a shotgun in one hand and a machete on the other, Jean makes his last run for freedom.

 

* * *

 

They'd heard the first shot just a couple upward miles from the facilities's door, and Sasha had stopped dead. Her face was ashen under the clinging dirt, and she moved to ready her bow. Connie grabs her upper arm, hauls her along.

"We can't help them alone. Not like this. We have to-- have to get help from Recon."

So they scramble on, hands cut on rocks and muscles screaming from the doubled pace. They're steady, though - natural skills of survival and the help of their companions having let them last this long.

They'd all been in high school together - Jean, Connie, Sasha, and Marco - when the first bombs had hit. Big cities had been the first to go, entire populations wiped out with weapons neither side fully understood, but by the time a ceasefire had been established the world was in chaos. It was painful to hear the death tolls, numbing to hear them mention names known to them, and hellish when the Eotens had finally reached their town.

But so many determined people had still survived, clung to each other instead of feeding off them, and the balance was shifting. It had been under this drug of hope that their group had made their first big mistake, and it had cost them Marco.

Marco, who had managed to keep them all together when the Eotens first struck. Marco, who'd married Sasha's rural upbringing with Connie's brilliant paranoia and Jean's resilient, unbreaking spirit of leadership. Marco, who'd led them all to the doorstep of the promised land before being torn into by Eoten.

And then they'd gone back, retracted their hard won footsteps as they sought the dangers of the mountains instead, all to try to make Marco's death mean something.

But what Jean'd really fought for, the truth that slipped out with every soft word, every diligent attention, every guilty touch, was to try to save his life. The rest of the world didn't matter, not really. Marco had.

Three more shots ring out by the time they reach the door, on their hands and feet crawling upwards to meet a man lithe and sharp-eyed as a falcon. The fourth resounds against the stone as they pass out at his feet, gabbling their story to him as others surround them, asking urgently, "what should we do, Levi?"

And the fifth comes just as Levi reaches the base of the mountain, flanked by his own small team of five, just in time to see one man stumble, alone, out of the ruins of the city.

 

* * *

 

"It's remarkable, really, that you got this far," Hanji comments to the man laid on on her table. His injuries are extensive, should have been fatal. Will be fatal soon, according to the scientist's calculations. He'd worn his body down to nothing.

"You'll be useful, at least, Marco.  Your blood has some really fantastic properties - you might just save millions."

She smiles down at him, and he closes his eye as she draws out some of his special, resilient blood. His heart beat is slow now, growing slower with every second, but he'd made it.

They'd made it.

"Hey."

A voice reaches his failing ears, and Marco knows to open his eye once more.

"You still with me? Don't think of leaving me behind, you know."

And his torn, damaged lips smile.

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [still with me [dead week remix]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1552919) by [Legendaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie)




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